


Angel's Favor

by PinkPenguinParade



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: (not much Gabriel but he's still a dick), Light Angst, M/M, Misgendering, POV Outsider, Talking, Trans Character, cw: gabriel, major injury (not explicitly described), no really so much talking, pronoun confusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22335421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkPenguinParade/pseuds/PinkPenguinParade
Summary: "I beg your pardon, dear girl, have you seen--ah."She whirled at the voice behind her, off her knees in a flash, and found herself face to face with the kindest eyes she'd ever seen. "What are--?"He was a bit taller than she was, pale and round andoverwhelmingand she couldn't look away from his eyes, like he knew everything and still cared and his eyes, hiseyes--He caught her elbow as she staggered. "Oh, I'm so sorry." He closed his eyes for a moment and shook himself,settlingsomehow, and when he opened them again his eyes were kind and a humanish blue, and she could breathe again. He glanced at the blackened shaft in her hand. "I believe you called me?"
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 99
Kudos: 802





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Are you an angel, too?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20835785) by [HolyCatsAndRabbits](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolyCatsAndRabbits/pseuds/HolyCatsAndRabbits). 



> Although it's grown out of all proportion to my original cute little idea, Are You an Angel Too? was absolutely the kickoff and still one of my favorites. Also if you're not reading the Mr. Fell's Bookshop series you totally ought to be.
> 
> I've tried to be respectful of all issues involved while keeping the PoV consistent and realistic. If I've messed that up, please let me know--I am myself both cis and het, but I try to be willing to learn.
> 
> Rated T for some swears. I do like my swears. Comments are always loved and appreciated.

She stepped outside--unable to believe she was about to do this, but unable to stop herself. It wouldn't come to anything. She knew it wouldn't come to anything. It couldn't possibly. She was a rational person, she was a _scientist_ for pity's sake, and this was...well, this was impossible. Superstition. Mythology at best, an old wives' tale at worst.

And if she'd had anywhere else to turn, she'd never have done it. If her sister hadn't answered, hadn't remembered the story (as much of it as either of them had ever known), hadn't known where to find it....

The hospital was full of 'No Smoking' signs. So she stepped outside, with her borrowed lighter and the precious, fragile bundle of hope. Past the parking lot to a small patch of green, she stared for a good ten minutes before allowing herself to peel back the cracked old paper.

Nestled into the center of it, almost glowing and looking fresh as anything, was a single white feather. Which was ridiculous, because she knew that this bundle had been in her family for generations, carefully kept but hardly hermetically sealed. Anything as fragile as a feather should be crumbling by now, not still supple and silky under her fingertips. 

There were words on the paper, faded ink in a wavery copperplate hand. _Burn me, if ever you need._

_I need,_ she thought, and pulled out the lighter--then stopped. It didn't feel quite right, not yet.

Ignoring what she must look like, she knelt carefully in the damp grass, knees of her jeans soaking cold immediately. It felt better. Right. An attitude of supplication. She was asking for a miracle, after all. And when it failed... grass stains were no sillier than lending herself to this in the first place.

Kneeling in the grass under a cherry branch in bloom, shivering slightly in the spring breeze, she flicked the lighter into flame. "Please," she whispered, voice breaking. "Please."

And she held the feather in the fire.

The vanes curled and blackened as she watched. She waited for disappointment and the stink of burning keratin, and was surprised when the only thing she smelled was faint and sweet--nothing she had ever smelled before, nothing she could possibly describe.

The feather burned, falling to ash until the flame died and only the shaft was left, brittle and blackened. And she was left, alone, kneeling in the wet grass. Feeling like a fool. 

She gave it a few more heartbeats, just in case, just so she wouldn't have to go back in quite yet.

Her breath caught in a sob and a gulp, her eyes leaking. Again. She reached up to brush tears away. Stupid, she told herself. Stupid, stupid. Stupid to think this would work, to buy into the family legend. Stupid to _hope._

"I beg your pardon, dear girl, have you seen--ah." 

She whirled at the voice behind her, off her knees in a flash--stupid, to let herself be snuck up on--and found herself face to face with the kindest eyes she'd ever seen. "What are--?"

He was a bit taller than she was, pale and round and _overwhelming_ and she couldn't look away from his eyes, like he knew everything and still cared and his eyes, his _eyes_ \--

He caught her elbow as she staggered. "Oh, I'm so sorry." He closed his eyes for a moment and shook himself, _settling_ somehow, and when he opened them again his eyes were kind and a humanish blue, and she could breathe again. He glanced at the blackened shaft in her hand. "I believe you called me?"

"Angel, you can't just disappear like that, I swear you're going to be the death of me--!" came a voice behind her. She had to work to pull her eyes away from the kind man, who still had a steadying hand on her elbow.

The voice behind her belonged to another man, slightly taller, with crimson hair and black clothes and dark sunglasses. The kind man glanced at him. "I did tell you I'd be back."

"You didn't, actually, you just up and left in the middle of dinner--"

"Oh, the bill! I'm so sorry--"

"Relax, I took care of it. Also, she needs to breathe. Breathe, human."

She found herself taking a much-needed breath, automatically, and realized her vision had been getting a bit shaky around the edges. "I think... I think there might have been something in that feather I just burned..." she said, as her knees shook. 

"You're glowing, angel. Tamp it down." The dark man offered his hand, and they steered her over to the bench under the tree, sitting on either side of her. She ought to be scared, she thought; she ought to be worried about being surrounded. But she wasn't. She put her head down in her hands and closed her eyes, concentrated on breathing steadily, inhaling the faint lingering scent from the shaft she still held.

"That... that was yours," the dark man said from her left. "Why did she have your feather?"

A crinkle of paper, and a small laugh. "Oh, this one. This one was... my dear," he said, with the lightest touch to her shoulder, "This must have been your grandmother, at least."

"Great," she said, through what felt like a mouthful of sand. "Great-great, maybe. Hard to remember." She took another breath, then scrubbed her hands over her face. "I'm sorry. I didn't think it would work. But the family stories said it would, and I need... I need--"

"Call me Ezra," he said. "And this is Crowley. And you must tell me what's wrong, if you want my help."

She rubbed her eyes once more and raised them to meet those blue ones. "Allison. My name is Allison. Please, just... come inside. It'll be easier to explain inside."

She led the way, babbling about inconsequential things, like how to get to pediatrics and how her sister had come to stay and where the nurses' station was, and they followed her, making appropriately interested noises at reasonable intervals. But her babble dried up as she reached the room, and she swallowed heavily before opening the door. 

"Here," she said, holding the door for them. "Please."

Her sister stood up as the strange men entered; Allison waved her back down. "It's okay, Sarah. It... it worked. It really worked. They're here to help. I think." 

The kind man--Ezra--went straight to the bed and caught her daughter's hand. "Oh, my dear girl. Oh, no wonder you called. What happened to him?"

She felt a sob rip from her, caught totally off guard by his casual question even as Sarah stood angrily. "Sarah, stop."

"Her," Sarah was saying. " _Her_ name is Kat, and you don't get to just--"

"Sarah." Allison caught her sister's hands. "Kat came to me, before she-- he-- Before. We... we fought. I didn't handle it super well. I thought she was just confused, said... I said a lot of things." She couldn't face the stricken look Sarah gave her, and turned around to face the two men and the too-still figure on the bed. "This is my daughter, Kat. Or maybe my son. If she--if they've chosen another name, they didn't say."

Ezra still stood by the bed, holding that small hand and watching her with piercing eyes. The dark man--Carl? Curly? she couldn't quite remember--slouched against the wall behind him, turned in her direction, but who could tell what his eyes were doing behind the dark lenses?

"I think you need to tell me what happened, my dear. And then we can discuss what can be done."

"She came to me. Told me she--he--had never really felt like a girl, wanted to talk to a doctor. I thought--she's only eleven! I thought it was just because there's been stories in the news, and I said... I said she'd grow out of it." Arms folded around her from behind, and she leaned back into Sarah's comforting hug. "We had a couple days where we didn't talk except to argue. And then... riding her bike back from school. There was a truck, it was a stupid accident, it shouldn't have happened, but, but... she's my baby and she's just so broken!" She'd have fallen, then, without Sarah's strong arms. She could feel her knees trying to give way.

"And you called on me, to... what?" Ezra said. 

"I--"

"You're not getting your baby girl back the way you wanted her to be, regardless," the dark man drawled from his slouch against the wall.

"Now, Crowley, that wasn't very nice." He fixed her with that overwhelming blue stare again. "I just need to know what you _expect,_ here."

She was pinned by that stare, down to the meat and the bone of her. Trying to put the answer together properly was more than she could manage. Sarah saved her by speaking up. "The consensus of the medical team here is that there's too much damage--they're keeping Kat in a coma for the moment, but there hasn't been enough improvement. Nobody's saying they won't try... but nobody's really saying there's any hope, either. If it were just the broken bones and some internal damage, it would be bad enough, but... the head trauma...." Sarah's voice broke, the sweet alto cracking right in her ear, and still she couldn't tear her eyes away from Ezra's. 

A deep breath, behind her, and resolution. "For me, and I'm pretty sure I'm speaking for Allison too, here... I love this kid. I have loved this kid since before I first counted up fingers and toes. I don't care how they identify; I will learn new pronouns, I will learn a new name. I wish I'd known before I yelled at you for misgendering, but I will learn whatever I need to learn. I just want my Kat back. I want to not have to say goodbye before my favorite kid really even gets to do anything." She paused for a moment, considering. "And if it's not too much to ask... I want to know how the family ended up with that feather. Too much got lost through the generations."

"Allison?" Ezra said, still holding her eyes.

"Yes," she managed. "Yes to all of it. I don't care, I will do anything to support her. Him. I will damn well _learn._ I just want the chance to see my baby grow up strong. I just don't want a fight to be the last thing--" She broke off, words damming up in her throat. He watched her for another moment, until it was clear the sentence was done.

"Very well," Ezra said, breaking eye contact and looking back at Kat. "As for your final request--"

"I'd quite like to hear that one myself, angel," said the dark man. _Crowley,_ Ezra had said. 

"Yes, dearest, I'm getting to it. I will tell you the story, before I leave. Your grandmother--however many times great--deserves to be remembered." He took a breath and released Kat's hand, touched the still form carefully at shoulder and ribs, the leg cast, and finally, oh so gently, the bandaged head, eyes closing in concentration. 

His exhale broke the silence that had fallen, and Allison found herself relaxing, releasing a breath she didn't remember holding. 

"What can be done." His eyes were piercing, focused again on her. "There is... there is a lot of damage, my dear. I can repair... some of it." His hand still rested on Kat's head, cradling it gently. "The gross physical trauma is relatively easy to repair, just now."

"Just now?" Sarah asked, behind her.

"I am reasonably well rested at the moment, and, hrmm. Certain power considerations have been more difficult in the past than they are currently." His face softened. "I am not all-powerful, no matter how well-rested I am. That belongs to the Almighty."

"So what--" her voice broke, and she swallowed. "What can't you do?"

"I can heal. I am, in fact, rather good at it, if I do say so myself. What I cannot do... I cannot replace memories that have been lost due to the damage. I cannot say, for sure, how much has been lost and how much has survived. I can ensure that the negative physical effects are minimized or erased, but I cannot put him back the way he was."

She closed her eyes, feeling tears start again.

" _Additionally,"_ Ezra said sharply, and her eyes snapped open. "I cannot--I will not--change him, to tailor his soul to his body or vice-versa."

"I--! I wouldn't, I wouldn't ask, I just want him back!" Something must have shown on her face to convince him, because he softened again.

"There will be things he needs to re-learn. I cannot tell what they might be, memories or motor skills. Likely some of both, I'm afraid." He shook his head briefly, curls catching the light. "I can see the shape of his soul; I cannot read his mind."

"How sure are you that this was an accident?" Crowley asked, from the corner. She'd almost forgotten he was there. Ezra's sharp glance in his direction said maybe he had, too. "Free will is sssacred," he shrugged.

"Not about that, it isn't," Ezra said.

The meaning behind his question filtered through to her. "Wait, you think--"

"No, my dear," Ezra cut her off. "Despair that bleak leaves scars on the soul. I think that--aside from that imbalance, that disconnect, he was a happy child?"

"...I miss his laugh so much," she said quietly, and realized she was using male pronouns without having to think or remind herself; just having it be said matter-of-factly by this man before her made it easier to wrap her head around. "Would he have gotten better? If I hadn't... if I hadn't called you?"

"I don't know. I can heal many things, I can't heal everything. I can see many things, but I can't see everything. He is young, and the young are resilient." He smiled at her, and it was almost blinding. "I think he was happy; that argues that he could be happy again."

"Do it." The words were out of her mouth before she thought, and her brain stumbled along after them, but she couldn't think of any reason to try to call them back. "Please," she added. "Please, anything you can do."

"Of course." His smile, if anything, increased in wattage, and he turned back to the bed. 

Crowley peeled himself off the wall. "You guys want to have a seat," he waved at the chairs behind them as he sauntered toward the door. "This is probably going to take a while."

"Where are you going?" Sarah asked as they found themselves sitting down.

"I'll be back before you know it," he said, breezing out the door. 

They stared after him for a moment, then turned to each other; when that gave no answers they turned to watch Ezra. 

Whatever he was doing, it seemed to be both taxing and... and boring, she had to admit to herself after a few minutes. He had his eyes closed, and would occasionally move his hand to hover over a different part of Kat's body, but otherwise there was nothing much going on that she could see.

She'd had too much quiet, already; her mind was starting to move into skeptic mode again. What was she doing? This was impossible, she'd just _believed_ them, what if they were con men, this wouldn't work--

"Maybe I was expecting something more like the faith healers on TV," Sarah murmured to her.

"Nah, he's got more faith than anybody," Crowley said, surprising both of them. Allison jumped, about to chide him for sneaking up on them; he forestalled it by pressing a cup of coffee into her hands. "Black, two sugars." And one for Sarah: "Cream, one sugar." There were two additional cups on the table by his elbow.

"How do you know how I take my coffee?!" she whisper-screamed, in lieu of the shriek she'd bitten off when he appeared beside her. 

"He does faith and hope, mate. He can see the shape of a soul. Most of the time," he amended. "Me? I do desires. Unfortunately unless someone needs tempting it's only good for drinks and cheap tricks, and I'm out of the temptation game right now." He reached out beside him and picked up one of the other cups, sipping from it contentedly and sprawling in the uncomfortable plastic chair. "'Sides, the only thing I could really tempt you with right now is what he's already doing."

She tried to give Sarah her 'do you believe this?' look, but Sarah had already rolled her eyes, shrugged, and taken a sip. "This is never hospital coffee," Sarah breathed appreciatively, inhaling the steam. 

"He--Mmm. Nope. The coffee here is frankly shite. I'm not drinking that stuff, so for the course of the afternoon, at least, you shouldn't have to either." He took another long sip of his coffee, then stopped. "Actually, is it afternoon? Where the--where are we, even? And why do all the good swears have religious meanings? I mean, based on your accent... it's America, isn't it? We're in America? I haven't been in America in decades--"

" _Stop,"_ she said. "It's afternoon, and please. You're in Canada. I know everyone thinks of us as America, but we're really, really not."

"Oh, cheers! I don't know if I've ever been in Canada, really." He held up his cup again, in a parody of a toast. 

"You can say fuck and it has no religious overtones, but if you use it too much people look at you funny," Sarah said dreamily beside her, still cradling her coffee in both hands and breathing the steam. "I've said it a lot lately."

Allison gave up and took a sip of her own coffee. It was good, no question; far better than she'd been subsisting on. She could feel her brain perking up already.

There was nothing for it to do yet, though. She watched Ezra for a few minutes as she drank. He still seemed to be working very hard without actually moving; she could, if she looked closely, see a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead. "I thought a miracle would be more... I don't know, miraculous?"

"He's taking the long way round," Crowley said. "Trust me, miracles are happening." He turned briefly toward the bed, and scowled. "A _lot_ of miracles. Bollocks. Is he planning to bring down all of Heaven on us?"

"What is it? I thought--"

"Look, it's not that simple, is it? Nothing, ever, in the history of time, is all that simple, not when you really look at it." He'd sat up, alert, the first time she'd seen him in anything but a slouch, and she couldn't tell for sure behind the sunglasses but she got the distinct impression that his eyes were roving the room. "There was a bit of a falling-out, okay? Just a tiff. But neither of us wants too much attention from our people, and here he is waving a big giant flag, so... Yeah." He scrubbed his hands through bright hair, leaving it sticking up in all directions. "We, ah, we might actually have to leave... really quickly. Like, really really quickly."

"But he's still doing... whatever he's doing!"

"He won't leave til he's done; he'd never forgive me for yanking him out early. But I'm not letting him stay a minute longer than that, not with how much power he's pulling." He tilted his head for a moment, then snapped his fingers and the feel of the room changed.

"I hope that was you, dearest." Ezra did not open his eyes or change position, but his voice was clearly strained, much quieter than it had been.

"Should buy us some time. Don't let it distract you."

It was certainly distracting her--it felt tingly, just the tiniest crawl over her skin. She looked at her hand, but whatever it was didn't seem to be visible. "What... Can you tell us what's going on? I always thought of miracles as, as easy. Instantaneous, really." When she'd thought of miracles at all, anyway, which hadn't been much. Not until she'd needed one.

"Okay. Okay. You get one good explanation, right?" Crowley knocked back the rest of his coffee and stood, pacing restlessly. "Not one for healing, me. I can do it in a pinch, but it's a bit of a brute-force thing. Pour some power in there and tell the body to use it to speed things up." He turned toward the bed and shook his head, resuming his pacing. "Does the trick, generally. But there are _side effects,_ right? Popping power into a human body like that, it does things, there's a, a spillover, and one of the things that does is fuzz the memory. Most of the time--nearly all of the time--that's okay, it just gets written off as part of whatever the problem was in the first place, there's not a lot of fuzz, and people go on with their lives. No worse than a bad night drinking." 

Whatever was crawling over her skin was getting stronger, frenetic and sharp. She wouldn't have interrupted him for the world, though; not while he was telling her what was going on with Kat.

"Your kid there, though. There is already damage, and even when it heals normally damage like that has a lot of negative effects, life-long ones. So instead of just dumping in power and telling the body to get on with it, he is fixing your kid _by hand._ Understand?"

"Not really," Sarah said.

"Like, like you could toss a 2-kilo bag of sugar across the room and sure a little might spill but it wouldn't really take that much energy. But if you had to transfer it teaspoon by teaspoon you're going to be really tired of it by the end, and if you're picking it up with tweezers to move it--"

"You're going to expend a lot more energy," she finished for him.

"The lady gets a prize." Crowley took another two turns, energy crackling off him, until a particularly sharp buzz made her jump and twitch and he froze, turning toward her. 

"What _is_ that?" she said, facing those dark lenses. "Some sort of weird static electricity?"

"You _feel_ that?"

"I don't feel anything," Sarah said.

"Huh." He watched them with a little head-tilt, then took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

The sense of pressure in the room eased.

"What did you do?"

"Lot of conflicting power buildup in the room. I smoothed it out. Should be more comfortable. I'll have to let it out later, but I can't do it in here." He shrugged, but even behind his glasses she could feel his gaze on her. "Most people can't feel it. I wonder why you can." He held himself still, looking at her, and she could almost mistake it for calm until he suddenly staggered like he'd been hit. "That's one. Angel, tell me you're almost done over there."

"Nearly there, love." Ezra's voice was fainter still. He'd just spoken minutes ago, it shouldn't have sounded creaky from disuse. "Get ready."

Crowley looked at her and Sarah. "I'm sorry, alright? I really am. You seem like perfectly nice humans and you're trying to do right by your kid. But I only set up three decoy relays, and I've already lost one of them." He pulled down his sunglasses to look at them and she was pinned in place--his eyes were yellow and slit-pupiled, almost pulsing. "Shit. Two. Sssorry, but it really is ssafer for everyone."

She couldn't move, wanted to panic about it but couldn't even bring herself to do that. She almost felt frozen, encased in... not in ice, part of her thought, but something warmer. Amber, maybe? Amber sounded right. Golden light was creeping in from the edges of her vision, out from those eyes.

"Crowley." The kind man was glowing, but weakly, guttering. "I think that's all I can do." 

She watched him open his eyes and try to take a step. Watched the dark man catch him when he pitched over, and tried to remember why this seemed terribly important.

She was going to have to wait for her answers, it seemed. Between one breath and the next they were gone, and then the world went with them.

***

_The world comes back fuzzy, narrowed to a pair of furious amethyst eyes and an angry, plastic smile. "...you hear me, human?" She realizes he is talking, talking to her. "Can you hear me? Great, this one's broken."_

_Another voice, off to the side, but she can't shift to see who it is. The voice is reserved and furious. "This one, too. Looks like the demon's work."_

_"Can't believe he'd lend himself to--Hey! Human! What was going on in here?"_

_"Gabriel."_

_The gem-purple gaze leaves her eyes, and she can almost find words, almost--they're just out of reach--_

_"What's that? Is that... was that one of his_ feathers? _What was he getting up to down here? Eugh, that's just... eugh."_

_"The child, on the bed. Take a look at her."_

_Him, she thinks. The other one could tell, the other... the other.... She can't find the thought she's reaching for, can't push the words to her lips, but she tries, and even as wooly as everything is, the anger sharpens the world just a bit._

_"What, what do you--oh, wow. The traitor did that?"_

_"I don't like him any more than you do, but you have to admit it's impressive work."_

_"I don't have to admit anything. He is not_ authorized _for this. I swear, every time I think he can't go more native--" The eyes appear again, looking into her. "I don't know what you did or how you convinced him to do this, but... fuck it, I don't have time for this."_

_There's the snap of a finger, and darkness._

***


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two men stood on her stoop, obviously having just broken off a discussion of something when the door opened. The tall one was pale with red hair and sunglasses, dressed in black clothes (the dark man, she thought, and couldn't place why). The shorter one was rosy with buff-colored clothes a century out of date and pale hair standing out like dandelion fluff that got a perm. He wore a true smile, soft and kind (the kind man, she thought again) and blue eyes that made her smile back when she really didn't mean to. 
> 
> They were familiar--vexingly, wretchedly familiar--but she couldn't think why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 is up! hope y'all enjoy. Seriously, SO much talking. 
> 
> Also because I am a terrible person who forgot in part one, A big shout-out to LastSaskatchewanPirate and LigeiaStGermaine for being super patient with me and beta-ing anyway (and for last-minute help with 'how in the everloving hell do i even TAG this what have I DONE?') Ligeia, Pirate, y'all put up with a lot from me in the name of fanfic, and I love you for it.

The knock on her door tossed her out of the calculations she was doing. After the attempt to recapture her train of thought had been thwarted by another knock and an oh-so-helpful shout of "Mom, someone's at the door!" she sighed, gave up, and went to answer it.

Two men stood on her stoop, obviously having just broken off a discussion of something. The tall one was pale with red hair and sunglasses, dressed in black clothes (the dark man, she thought, and couldn't place why). He wore something she wouldn't call a smile but might definitely classify as a smirk. The shorter one was rosy with buff-colored clothes a century out of date and pale hair standing out like dandelion fluff that got a perm. He wore a true smile, soft and kind (the kind man, she thought again) and blue eyes that made her smile back when she really didn't mean to. 

They were familiar--vexingly, wretchedly familiar--but she couldn't think why. Then again, she thought, after all the time in hospital and the like, it seemed half the city was familiar to her these days.

"Yes?" she said. "Can I help you?"

"Avon calling," said the tall one, and immediately dodged what would have been a reasonably discreet ankle kick from the other one, who just sighed when he failed to connect. "I'm dreadfully sorry, my dear. I know it's been a bit, but I did want to check up to see how you all were doing. We had to leave very abruptly last time--"

"I'm sorry," she said, memory knocking quite heavily on the walls of her mind but not quite breaking through. "I know I recognize you, but we've met so many people, what with everything...."

"Nnngh. Told you it was a rush job, angel, I made a hash of it--"

 _Angel._ The word wandered into her mind, looked at the walls, and decided to kick them all down. She grabbed the door frame for support as it all came flooding back. "You!" she said, louder than she meant to, somewhere between annoyance and delight. "It's _you!_ I had an MRI because of you!"

They started talking over one another, "Oi, I was in a bit of a hurry!" overlapping with "I really am very sorry, that must have been quite annoying."

"And who was that absolute prick with the purple eyes?" she went on, as more memory surfaced.

Both men stilled. "Ah," the light one said (the kind man, her mind supplied again, and she could have punched the air when she came up with 'Ezra'). "Did I say already that I was terribly sorry?"

"Twice." She realized they were still standing on her porch having this conversation for the whole street to see, and stepped back. "Come on in. We can talk inside. Joshua's up in his room."

"He chose a name?" Ezra said happily as they followed her into the living room.

"Had it all picked out, he said. We're working on getting the legal change. And we've gotten him to a good therapist, on top of all the physical therapy." She waved them toward the couch. "Can I get you anything? Coffee? Juice? Lemonade?" She looked them over. "I suspect I'm going to need coffee for this."

"Oh, a lemonade would be lovely, my dear." Ezra sat down, relaxed and proper. "Just the thing."

"None for me, thanks." The dark one--she almost had his name, _almost_ \--smiled sharply and sprawled into her couch, half against Ezra. "I wouldn't even have let him come back, only he swore he'd never tell me the story if he wasn't telling you, too."

"Crowley, behave," Ezra said (Crowley! she thought, somewhat triumphantly). "I promised. I would have come back with or without you."

"Gabriel, angel. _Gabriel._ That wasn't just any old angels checking it out, it was Gabriel. You weren't coming back here alone."

"The one with the eyes... someone called him Gabriel. ...Angel? As in, as in Gabriel the angel? _Archangel Gabriel?!"_ Her voice went a little squeaky there at the end, but all in all she felt she was justified, if _The Archangel Gabriel_ had been... being a real prick to her, actually. "He was not happy."

"He is generally not happy, my dear. Even less so with me personally. Hence our rather abrupt departure." Ezra sighed. "There was a time I would have had to stand in his office for quite a while to explain myself, after such an act. These days I'm afraid I find it much better to simply avoid him if at all possible."

"And... how would you have explained? I have to admit, I'm insanely curious and don't even know where to start with the questions."

"I do," Crowley said. "How's the kid?"

"He's fine--amazing, considering. He'll have physical therapy a while longer, and his fine motor control is coming back. He's upstairs playing video games, which his doctor has actually prescribed. This makes him amazingly happy. He used to argue for video game time and now he can honestly say it's good for him and he's supposed to." She glanced fondly ceilingward, unable to hide her smile. "What you did... There's not even any residual brain damage they can find." That was the most amazing thing, really, and the one that eased her heart--they had been gentle, at the hospital, but quite firm; Traumatic Brain Injury, they'd called it. TBI. She still had a slew of pamphlets on what to expect and what the family would have had to watch for and deal with. The sight of the stack of them took her breath away--beforehand because of what her baby would go through; afterward because of what they'd dodged. 

"Oh, good! I'm very glad. The brain is amazing, but quite tricky."

"You wouldn't believe the number of times I overheard the word 'miraculous' from his medical team." Also 'unexplained' and at least one very heartfelt 'What in the everloving _fuck?'_ that she was fairly certain she wasn't meant to be able to hear.

"And how did that turn into you needing an MRI?" Crowley slouched even further down into her sofa, in a way that suggested his bones were not like normal human bones. Although, as parent of an eleven year old, she was sort of used to that.

"You left! You did... whatever you did to us, and you left, and then the other ones came by, and we, we _forgot_ about you! From the hospital's point of view our room just disappeared for a while and when they remembered us we were in some kind of fugue state. Everyone thought there'd been some weird chemical spill or something, nobody could explain it, and _we_ couldn't remember what happened..." She realized she was waving her hands in the air and consciously stilled them. 

Crowley had the good grace to wince. "I do hate being that high-handed. But... lesson one, angels are good. They're not _nice_. Yes, not you, angel!" he went on, before Ezra could do more than open his mouth. "We could stand here all day arguing about the theological implications of what exactly is meant by good if it doesn't overlap with nice and whether someone can actually be good if he's perpetually pissed off by everyone and also spends _that_ much on tailoring for a body he doesn't even really need. But that's not why we're here." He straightened slightly, leaned forward. Watching her behind those sunglasses. "I'm sorry I messed with your memory. I _really_ don't like doing that if I don't have to, not on that scale. But I was counting on that confusion when the angels got to you, so that they would leave you alone. I have been interrogated by angels, and it's not fun; I hoped that if they thought you'd already been wiped, they'd sod off when they realized you didn't know anything that could help them."

"There..." she said, and blinked, and cleared her throat. "There really are angels. _You_... really are angels?" She thought the talk of Gabriel had brought her around, but hearing them talk so baldly about angels and memory changes and the like was making it more real, and she'd never really been a believer in the first place.

"Of a sort, yes," Ezra said, overlapping Crowley's snort. "My dear, have a seat. There is a lot to talk about, here. You should be comfortable."

"Oh." She found the nearest chair and sat, still feeling slightly stunned. 

"Still want that coffee?" Crowley asked, with a faint smile. 

"Oh! I... I got distracted and forgot--"

"It's quite all right, my dear. Make yourself some if you like, or don't. We're perfectly fine either way."

She thought for a moment, then sighed. "I am going to want coffee for this. Excuse me, please. I'll be right back."

"Of course," Ezra said, kindly, as though he knew that a couple minutes to herself to process this would be as welcome as the caffeine.

The ritual of making the coffee calmed her hands, which calmed her mind. _I am rational,_ she told herself. _If all the available evidence says there are angels on my couch, then there are angels on my couch, until new information comes in that I am... going completely bonkers, probably._ But no matter how much she felt her grip slipping, there was the evidence of Joshua, healthy and whole and still healing, yes, but... well, the hospital staff probably didn't throw around the word 'miraculous' for no reason.

By the time she emerged a few minutes later and handed Ezra a glass of lemonade she was much calmer. He took the glass with every evidence of delight and seemed similarly pleased when she came back a moment later with her own coffee and a plate of cookies. "Still don't want any coffee?" she asked Crowley. 

"Nah, I'm good. Figure out your questions yet?"

"Yeah. The first one is..." She stopped, and took a deep breath. She could tell that this was a big one, but she needed to know, to see. "...Can I see your eyes? Please?"

He stilled, turning just slightly to Ezra. Ezra took his hand. "This one is up to you, dearest. I owed a debt, and I made a promise. You did no such thing."

Crowley was motionless, and she couldn't tell whether it was the waiting of the predator or the hiding of the prey, but when he finally let his breath out in a _whoof_ it felt like the world started moving again. He reached up slowly and pulled his sunglasses off, revealing amber-green eyes with slitted pupils.

She sighed shakily, relief making her almost dizzy. "Thank you. I--thank you, so much. You can put them back on." He fumbled his sunglasses back into place as she went on, "I've had... dreams, of your eyes, where I almost understood, I almost remembered. They were _maddening._ I couldn't make any sense of it, but it was real. It was real."

"Only fair, I guess. I messed with your memory. Maybe I owed you after all." He relaxed back deliberately, like laying a card on the table, but his hand didn't leave Ezra's grasp.

"Is your sister about?" Ezra asked, after the moment had stretched into silence. "If I'm going to tell stories, she should also be able to hear."

"I'll fill her in, but she doesn't really remember anything at all from when you were there. No dreams even, she said. And she had to go back home to Calgary. It's been half a year. She couldn't stay forever."

"One or two months, surely. It can't have been...." He glanced at Crowley, who just barely nodded. "It... really? Oh, my. I'm so sorry, I quite lost track of time!"

"Angel, you... you slept through most of it," Crowley said. "You didn't lose track of it, you slept through it."

Ezra blinked, looking quite taken aback. "I... Hmm. I know I've been sleeping a lot more than usual, but... Well. That's somewhat disturbing."

"You slept for six months?" She could hear the disbelief in her own voice.

"Not straight through. I don't think. I definitely have been awake for some of it. But it seems I've lost significant time." He made a face. "What an odd feeling."

"Well, that's what happens when you utterly deplete yourself for a miracle!" Crowley flopped back, hands over his face. "You can't just pop up for a recharge anymore!"

She'd been thinking. And she wasn't entirely sure that she liked it, but... "I wanted," she said slowly, "To tell you how sorry I am. How I would never have asked for months of anyone's life to get Joshua back. But... it's not actually true. I would have given months of my life, without a second thought, if I thought it would have worked." She considered for a moment. "Years, even. All of it."

"Oh, Allison, my dear. I'm very glad that it worked out, and that you were able to call on me. I won't say it's not disconcerting, but it's a fairly small time frame even in the course of a normal human lifespan, to trade for the future of one so young. It just required quite a bit of power."

"And how much of that was you, and not Heaven?" Crowley said. 

"Some," Ezra admitted. "Probably more than it should have been. Oh, but I was so close! He was coming together beautifully, I could see it. I just needed a little extra push."

"Which you gave him out of your _self,"_ Crowley said. "Which is exactly why I don't let you out on your own. I mean, how often have you done this, really?"

"It's surely not so dire as all that, dear. I believe the last time would have been, let's see... I believe the last time would have been Allison's grandmother, actually. 19...16? Possibly 15, it's a little vague."

"My gran--" she started to say, but cut off when Crowley slowly sat up straight with an expression she couldn't parse. "1916?" he said, looking at Ezra. "This is... _1916?"_

"Well, yes. Is that important? I don't hand feathers out willy-nilly, my love, no matter what you might think."

Crowley's disbelieving stare looked as though it could go on all day.

"So," she said, after a moment had passed with just staring, "What happened to my grandmother in 1916?"

Both of them turned to look at her. She took a sip of coffee to cover her flusterment.

Ezra glanced at Crowley, who shrugged and dropped back into the cushions again. "Not my story to tell, angel. I just show up to pick up the pieces. Apparently."

"You're being overly dramatic, love. Allison," he said, turning to her, "how much do you know about the Great War?"

Crowley dropped an arm across his face in evident social agony. "That's World War One, for _literally_ anyone who didn't live through it," he said.

"We learned a bit in school. We concentrated more on World War Two, but we did learn some about the first one. It was a real mess," she said. Then added, hesitantly, "I did see Wonder Woman?"

"Wonder Woman may not be historically accurate," Ezra said.

"Do you think so? Really?" Crowley said, arm still over his eyes. She almost, _almost_ wanted to laugh.

"It was a mess, as you say. It was obscene," Ezra went on. "Seemingly everyone in the world was racing to find more and more terrible ways to kill one another."

"Wonder Woman did cover that."

"Warfare went from horses to tanks in a few short years," Ezra said, as if she hadn't spoken. "And in some places, not even that. People remember the trenches, and the cold and the mud and so many scared boys who never grew up. Nobody much talks about the African theatre anymore, but... it was every bit as awful, in its way." He sighed. 

Crowley had removed the arm from over his face and was watching his friend closely.

"A lot of fighting went on there; most of Africa was still under colonial rule and since the colonizing nations were at war, so were the colonies. In accordance with attitudes of the time, many of those people were conscripts, pulled from their homes and told to fight; many more were forced into service in the baggage trains, to move materiel over terrain that was inhospitable to vehicles and pack animals."

Ezra fell silent with a sigh. Crowley watched him for a moment, then wordlessly reached to the plate of cookies and handed him one; Ezra shook himself slightly with a murmured, "Thank you, dear." He took a bite of the cookie, and some of his lemonade. 

All in all she thought she was being quite patient to wait until he had finished his cookie before asking, "So... my grandmother...?"

"Was part of the baggage train, yes. From some of the things she said--the ones I remember--I gather she was given very little choice in the matter. Not that she would have been in any case, but when soldiers come through and remove all your workers during planting season, well, famine on top of everything else... a lot of people died in East Africa, during the war."

He took a deep breath and another cookie, and looked her in the eye with a slight smile. "My dear girl, I would love to be able to tell you that angels travel to the area of greatest need to alleviate it. And sometimes, indeed, I was allowed to do that; there was always a small amount that was at my discretion. But Heaven and Hell are ultimately like any other large organization, in that sometimes the people carrying out the orders have no clear idea of what their actions are supposed to accomplish and no authority to fix the immediate problems they perceive. Which is my long-winded way of telling you that I'm not sure I actually remember why I was in the area so much as being very angry that I had been sent there for something that felt trivial, when there was so much need all around me. I was nearby when the British columns came through and bivouacked, and as they were moving in the direction I needed to go I marched with them for a few days, spreading small miracles as I could. I couldn't stop the war; I couldn't make it so all those people could go home to villages that were miraculously whole and well-stocked. But I could ease injuries, I could make the rations go farther, I could conjure the occasional sweet and keep spirits up.

"Your grandmother found me, one night, in the middle of my wandering the camp talking to people. She had seen me helping, she said; maybe I would help them. And she brought me back into the porters' section, to a man who had a high fever--a small wound, that had gotten infected. Nothing like as complex as Joshua, mind. But the infection had spread, and while I was able to help him there was already damage to be fixed. I was tired afterward. She brought me food and water, and I stayed for a while, talking to the porters who were awake. They were lovely people."

He reached for another cookie. They'd mostly been bought for Joshua, and she didn't feel they were quite worthy of the small noises of appreciation he made while eating them, but she was glad to have them there even as she wanted to make him stop and spill the rest--nothing he had described so far was worth the weight of a feather, much less the intensity of the work he'd done on Joshua.

"It was late, and as far as any of them knew, we were in the middle of nowhere. There were sentries, but... the first I knew we had been targeted was when shells hit the other end of the camp. I had that much warning--exactly that much--to try to shield my area before shells came down where we were, too." His mouth flicked up in a slight smile. "Don't think it was purely altruistic. I didn't want to see those people killed! But I have also worn the same body for a very long time, and I didn't want to go through requisitioning a new one. At best it's a lengthy, annoying process; at worst I might have been reassigned."

Her face must have shown some of her confusion; Crowley grinned at her. "If you want to exist in the world of matter, you need matter. Creating a new body from scratch takes a tremendous amount of energy--well, you have a kid, you know that. Nobody wants to have to do it all the time, so... there's paperwork and more paperwork and once you finish that? More paperwork. Stern lectures on being more careful. Sidelong comments about how maybe if you can't take care of things you'd be happier doing something else, hmm? Not fun, much better to avoid it in the first place."

"I... never imagined Heaven as a, a _bureaucracy,"_ she said.

"Nobody ever does," Crowley said. 

"Probably for the best." Ezra smiled. "I was able to shield most of the baggage train, for a while. Your grandmother helped pull people close, reassure them, calm them. Talked down one of the soldiers who had been out on patrol when he staggered in in a tizzy and came straight toward me. The shelling... the shelling seemed to go on forever, although it was quite late at night when it started and it was well over by dawn, it couldn't have been more than a few hours. One's sense of time is relative, no matter what plane one is from. I--" He stopped, mouth working soundlessly, then went on, "Yes, I... I definitely remember dawn _after_ it was done? Unless that was the next day...."

Crowley's jaw had dropped. "Hours, angel? You kept yourself and a group of humans safe from shelling. For hours. On top of travel and healing and who knows how many blessings and--and AAUGH." He ran his fingers through his hair, turning it from artful disarray into just disarray, then stood and paced. "No wonder you--!"

"No wonder I what, love? I'm sorry, dear girl," Ezra went on, turning to her, "I'm very afraid that it all gets a little fuzzy from here on."

"Of course it gets fuzzy! That would have taken so much-- How did you even have any power at all left after that? And I only assume you did have any power because you hadn't actually discorporated by the time I got to you!"

Ezra sipped his lemonade calmly, apparently used to outbursts of pacing and wild gesturing. "She kept me safe, dearest. Until you could get there. Which I do very much appreciate, by the way. And this lemonade is lovely, thank you so much," he added toward her, and took another careful sip.

She waited a moment, but between Crowley having stopped to stare at Ezra in apparent crogglement and Ezra calmly enjoying his lemonade, no further information seemed to be forthcoming. "Kept you safe from what? How?" she said finally. "How did you know to go get him?"

"Oh, come morning there were soldiers who came over, of course. They thought they'd taken out the entire column and were surprised to find us still sitting there mostly whole. The remaining supplies were appropriated, but your grandmother, she stepped up and, well, took things in hand, especially with the conscripted troops. I've known duchesses who were less firm than she was, although she was very much more careful with the actual Germans. She'd have needed to be. The racial politics of the time... well, that's neither here nor... I suppose it is there, actually--"

"The _point,_ angel."

"The point, Crowley, is that I kept us all safe from the bombs. She kept us all, kept _me,_ safe from the bullets and bayonets after. I certainly wasn't up to it! I don't even know how long it was until you got there, but it was at least the next day, and soldiers who find that the people they've bombed have mysteriously survived--and who have at least a couple of targets that might be officers--well. She even arranged for some of the porters to carry me when we moved back out, as... prisoners, I suppose, although for most of us it was merely a change in conscription. There wasn't even much in the way of a guard posted. The terrain was hostile enough."

"Best part of a week," Crowley said. "That's how long it took me to find you. You, you went bright and then all _dim,_ all of a sudden, like a, like a supernova. Like you'd just snapped out of the world, almost. Woke me up, when even the noise of the war hadn't managed, and I could feel you out there, but I couldn't, I couldn't find you." He dropped onto the couch next to Ezra, head in his hands. "You were so faint I couldn't get a proper direction. Popped all over the bloody world, it felt like, trying get a bead."

Ezra's face had gone... gooey, she realized. How a human face could have cartoon stars around it was new to her, but that was the overwhelming impression. "Oh, my dearest. You must have been so upset--I _thought_ you were frantic when you showed up, but so much of it ran together and you played it off later and oh, of course you did!" He reached out and took hold of Crowley's hands, which closed tightly, clasping him back.

If anyone in Allison's entire life had asked her to describe what angels would be like, she would never ever have come up with 'adorable middle-aged queer couple'. But adorable they were. She found herself smiling just for their obvious affection, even though she still had so many questions.

"I didn't even dare take you back to London, you were so faded. Just found the nearest access point and kicked you Upstairs to recharge. Didn't see you for another two weeks, thought maybe you'd been reassigned, was terrified that I maybe wasn't fast enough, and then you swanned in like nothing happened and took me out to dinner and _never said a bloody word about it."_

"Oh, my poor Crowley. I used you so badly, and I didn't even--you should have said! I'd just spent two weeks Upstairs and Gabriel was being tiresome and kept handing back my report for corrections and I just wanted to stop thinking about it, but I didn't realize--!"

"And you wonder that I was ready to yank you out, six months ago."

"You did beautifully, dearest. You did! I know it was hard, but you granted me time, and--May we see him?" Ezra said, turning toward her, apparently remembering that she was there. "I would very much like to see how he's holding up."

"And before you call him, any other questions about what happened. What we... what we are." Crowley took a deep breath, let it out in a sigh. "Probably best to do that first."

"A million, I'm sure. But mostly..." She turned to Ezra. "What was her name? I think my grandmother knew, but she died, and I don't think Dad knew. He-- I remember when we lost Mom, it was so sudden, and he argued with my grandfather about the feather. Grandpa told him to burn it and see, but grandpa never believed in anything anyway, and Dad said bringing someone back from the dead was more miracle than any family story could cover."

"He was correct, dear girl. I have a great deal of power, by human standards, but that is beyond my abilities. Well, if I'm not immediately on hand when it occurs," he amended, at Crowley's raised eyebrow. "There are strict time limits, just as there are in human medicine."

She hadn't actually thought she had questions about that, until it was answered, but a tiny bit of guilt bled out of her. Because, she realized, if it had brought her mother back, she might have lost Joshua. "I don't think I was supposed to hear that conversation. I was still young--younger than Joshua is, even. But it was clear that wherever the feather had come from, Dad and Grandpa didn't know the story. So... what was her name?"

Ezra looked abashed. "...Mary," he said, with a helpless shrug. "I'm so sorry, my dear. That was the only name she gave me--most of the European troops were too self-centered to learn native names, and it was common practice to just assign new ones that they might remember. I did ask, but she was stalwart that she would reclaim her name when she got to go home, and not get anyone in trouble in the meantime for something so trivial." His hands wrung together in his lap, until Crowley reached over and stilled them. "I could have made her tell me, before, or pulled it from her, but it would have been a, a violation. And then after, of course, it would still have been a violation but I couldn't have done it if I wanted to."

"...Oh."

"I meant to ask her, when I saw her again. It didn't occur to me that it might be a century on before that favor was called in." He smiled. "I don't remember much from that--well, that nearly-a-week, apparently. But I remember her standing up for all of us, and I remember pulling the feather for her. Giving her the instructions, such as they were. She saved more than just me."

"I didn't know her name this morning. I don't know why it feels so different now, to still not know her name."

"I am dreadfully sorry. I wish I could have told you."

"I have enough to thank you for," she said, reaching for her coffee. It was cold, and she made a face--and then it wasn't cold, it was perfect drinking temperature. She looked at them.

Ezra was smiling. Crowley was looking suspiciously innocent. 

She shrugged and drank her perfect coffee, then stepped upstairs to fetch Joshua. It took a moment to talk him out of his headphones and into pausing his game, but he thundered down the stairs with as much enthusiasm as she was likely to get out of an eleven-year-old sent to meet strangers.

"Hello, Joshua!"

Joshua stopped in front of Ezra. "I know you, don't I?"

"We met briefly, when you were in hospital. This is Crowley, and you can call me Ezra. I'm so glad to see you're doing better! What do the doctors say?"

"That I'm lucky and I always have to wear my helmet and watch both directions. And that I can play video games because they're good for me!"

"Oh, that does sound like fun. Are you able to ride your bicycle again?"

"Only on this block, I'm not allowed to cross a street yet."

"You know what he's going to say now, don't you?" said Crowley, with a grin.

"What?"

"You must always wear your helmet, of course! And watch all directions," Ezra said. "What happened to you was scary, and adults in charge of a car _ought_ to be watching better for people who aren't as well protected, but sometimes even adults don't do that. Right, Crowley?"

"Oi! I would never let anyone be hit by my car, it might scratch the paint!"

Joshua laughed, and her heart lifted--he'd been more reserved, since coming out to her and choosing a name, and she understood, because it was one thing to figure out who you were and another thing entirely to stand up at this age and shout it from the rooftops.

"And I'm sure this is not a surprise to you, but adults aren't perfect, either. So you must be careful, because sometimes grownups aren't." Ezra stood, holding out a hand near Joshua's head. "And just look how tall you are!"

"How tall was I the last time?"

"Oh, at least this tall," Ezra said, holding his hands about a meter and a half apart. "You were lying down, so I couldn't tell. You look much better now, you were entirely too still before." He smiled, reached back toward Joshua's head, and came away from his ear with a coin. Crowley winced.

Joshua looked entirely unimpressed until he saw the coin. "Hey, mom, this is British!"

"Is it? Extraordinary! But I think we've taken up enough of your mother's time." He made a show of looking around him, then sighed theatrically. "Crowley dear, did you happen to bring in the bag?"

Crowley looked at him for a long moment, then reached behind himself and pulled out a satchel they had definitely not been carrying when they came in. She would have noticed, because it was a bright purple-pink-and-yellow geometric pattern that almost hurt to look at. "This one?"

Apparently it was Ezra's turn to wince, but he nodded. "Just the thing. Young man, thank you so much for coming down to say hello. We just have a few more things to talk to your mother about, and then I'll return her to you."

"Okay. Mom, can I--"

"Yes, you can go back to your video game. No more than an hour!" she added, as he lit up the stairs with a tossed-off 'Bye!' and she sighed after him. "I want to say he's more of a handful now, but that's my kid, no matter what the pronouns." She looked at Ezra. "Thank you, so much, for bringing him back to me."

"My dear girl, of course! He's healing quite well indeed--better than I expected." He reached for the garish bag on Crowley's lap and shook his head. "You've outdone yourself on this one, love. Anyway," he turned back to her, "I took the liberty of asking for some recommendations. There are some books in here that he might enjoy, and some for when he gets older, if he starts to feel like there's nobody like him to read stories about. You may also enjoy them; I'm not sure what you read but I know there's a lot to take in and you're going to have to learn it together." 

He handed her the bag. It was decidedly more full than it had been when sitting on Crowley's lap. She wasn't even surprised anymore. "I can't possibly thank you enough for, for everything," she said, setting the bag down on the table.

"You already have! Be the best mother you can for that child. Best thanks in the world." 

Crowley unfolded from the couch and came to stand beside him. "Human," he said, nodding his head. "Take good care of the kid. Take good care of yourself, too." He handed her a small black card, pulled from nowhere. "You've seen some things. You might find yourself seeing more of them. Sometimes humans do, especially if they already have a talent. If you need, I know a witch who has some experience."

"I don't believe in witches," she said automatically, and then realized what a stupid thing it was to say under the circumstances.

"You didn't used to believe in angels," he said, eyebrows raising over his sunglasses. 

"Good thought, dear," Ezra said. "I shall try to look in on Joshua occasionally, but--" he pulled a second card, cream-colored and old-fashioned, out of the air and handed it to her. "In case he has questions, later."

"How will you look in on him?"

"He rebuilt your kid from scratch. You don't just forget what someone's soul looks like, after that," Crowley said with a smile.

"He may have dreams, at some point," Ezra added. "Much as you did, and for similar reasons. Trying to preserve his memories, as much as I could, meant I had to touch them. I tried to do so lightly, but...."

"Let her have the rest of her day, angel." Crowley stepped toward the door, tugging Ezra along with him.

"Oh, of course! You must have work to do. Thank you very much for the lemonade, my dear." 

She stepped toward the door with them, opened it for them. "Thank you for my son," she said, holding both cards close to her chest. 

"Have a lovely day!" Ezra said as he was pulled outside. Crowley looked back just once, and tipped his glasses up to wink at her with one yellow eye. "Good luck, human."

And then she blinked, and they were gone. 

***

_9 years later_

He wandered through Soho, looking at directions on his phone in one hand, clutching an old-fashioned business card in the other. The underground had gotten him this far, but the streets were confusing and his map wasn't quite giving him what he needed. 

When it finally told him he was at his destination, he looked up to see an old building on the corner, with books and dust in all the windows and an ancient sign that said "A Z FELL AND Co - PURVEYOR OF BOOKS TO THE GENTRY."

He stepped up to it and tried the door. It opened with the cheery little tinkle of a tiny brass bell. 

"I'm afraid we're closed!" came a voice from back in the shelves, soon followed by a cheerful blond man bustling out towards him. "Dreadfully sorry, I forgot to lock the--"

"It's you!" he said, because it was, just as he remembered from his living room but also like it had been in his dreams, bigger than the human-sized body in front of him, vast and weighty in ways he had no words for. "It really is! I, I kept dreaming about you--"

The man smiled. "Hello, Joshua. It's very good to see you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am Not An Expert on WWI and especially not on the African Theatre, but from my research the conscription of locals and use of human porters was totally A Thing, the famine resulting from workers being pulled at planting time and armies ransacking villages for supplies was also totally A Thing, and it absolutely sucked for everyone involved. I have taken some liberties, largely in fuzzing details, because I would rather be writing fiction than exhaustively researching a depressing war, but there is information out there and those people, too, deserve to be remembered.
> 
> Thank you for sticking with this slice of my fandom headcanon; I hope you all enjoyed it. I may not react to every comment, but they're all read and loved.


End file.
